Customer ratings & reviews

Expensive Paper Weight

Posted 1 year ago

jamesl

Verified Purchase

Member

One of the big selling points for this camera is that it doesn't require a monthly subscription...wrong. This camera does have some nice features, which is the only reason it gets two stars instead of one. You will find out during the set-up that many of the best features can only be accessed for $10/month. The main problem is that the company does not have customer support options. My camera randomly started going offline line a week after purchasing. Once turned into every few days, and now is every day. When it goes offline, the only way to get it back online is to disconnect the power and reboot. There is no way to reset/restart it remotely, which entirely defeats the purpose of home security when you are away. When you go to their website for help, you will find out that they do not accept returns, and do not offer phone support. You have the option to send an email or an online chat. Well, the chat instructions don't work, as they send you to a webpage loop that doesn't ever get you to the point of initiating a chat. Sending an email apparently isn't an option either, as they still haven't gotten back to me two weeks later.
Their troubleshooting articles don't offer anything except unplug it and check your internet connection. Yes, there are probably some workaround options like purchasing a smart plug and disconnecting power remotely, but having purchased a battery backup to go with this system, I shouldn't have to rig up a workaround. Trying both a hardwired connect and wifi made no difference, and if it was a power outage issue, it would reset when restoring power and I wouldn't be typing this review right now. This is little more than a $150 paperweight, and this company should really rethink their customer service.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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mnmho

Verified Purchase

Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

A big disappointment

Posted 3 years ago

mnmho

Verified Purchase

Member

This review is from Canary - Indoor Wi-Fi High-Definition All-In-One Home Security System - White

I really want to like this purchase. But for a "security system", this is nothing but a very expensive camera with a lot of defects.
PRO:
- Simple to set up. The setup steps is a little strange as you need to initialize the unit using a provided audible cable connect to your smart phone.
- Very good camera. Excellence picture quality.
CON: Almost everything else. Here are some highlights:
- Price: expensive . $2xx plus is too much for what offer.
- Security Holes:
1. If you simply disconnect the power to an armed canary, no siren will sound.
2. Signal False alarms: camera is sensitive to light. As the day change to night and vice versa, an armed unit would send out false alarms as motion detected.
3. You have to manually set-off the siren . This probably because the unit usually send out false alarm.
- Live pictures display sometime very slow
- Unreliable: Sometime the unit simply stops working and you have to go over the setup process again.
- The unit is advertised as a smart system which would "learn" along the way. It did not (or may be I am not aware of its learning process !!!) For example: if you tag for the false alarms, the system did not learn that and still send out the same false alarms .

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Brand response

Canary

3 years ago

Hi There, Thank you so much for your feedback and your review. We're sorry that your experience with Canary has been less than positive, but we'd love the opportunity to turn that around. Some of your issues, like Watch Live being slow and the unit going offline are things we can troubleshoot. Please give our customer support team a call at 1-888-271-0121 from 9am-11pm EST 7 days a week or email us at support@canary.is and we'd love to help.

playgu

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

not very cost-effective and lacking features

Posted 2 years ago

playgu

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

No local storage of videos and no mounting options are a dealbreaker.
There are much cheaper options out there that provide both of those.
The wi-fi on it is pretty weak. It will constantly disconnect while other wi-fi devices in the same room have no problems. Wired ethernet is more solid.
The audio quality on the Canary is actually pretty good. But not really useful if you're using this for pure security reasons.
But back to the dealbreakers. The only viewing options are the Live View and the viewing of motion events through the Canary Cloud. Meaning it will only record video when the Canary believes there is motion or something happening. There is also no local storage options as I mentioned. I will just say that there are wi-fi cameras out there that allow recording to a microSD card or recorder system or a computer or cloud as well for roughly half the price of the Canary.
And there are no mounting options. As others have pointed out, someone can easily just walk up to the Canary and unplug it. And since the only type of recording done is through the cloud, if the internet for some reason is out, then you have no recording at all. Again, much cheaper options out there are wall-mountable.
In the end, not worth it and I'll be returning mine. I think someone else wrote that the Canary is not transferrable to another person, but this did not seem to be the case. I was able to remove it from my account and reset the Canary.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Unimpressed

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Meh...

Posted 3 years ago

Unimpressed

This review is from Canary - Indoor Wi-Fi High-Definition All-In-One Home Security System - White

So, it does not record when you watch live. That sucks. The box says nothing about an annual fee to have it record either, but there is one. That also sucks.
I like the functionality of the product, with those two exceptions. It does have a 10 second or so delay when watching live, and you do have to be careful about placement of the unit or you will end up with some choppy video, but that's not unexpected for something live streaming HD video. Make sure you have strong wifi. The video looks good, the IR is pretty clear and the sound quality is good. If it recorded while watching and it advertised the fact that the unit only comes with a "free trial" of recording video, after which there is a fee, this would have gotten 5 stars.
The inability to record to the cloud while watching live is a deal breaker for me. What if you are watching a burglary in progress and the damned thing does not record?

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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GadgetGuy

Verified Purchase

Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Disappointed

Posted 2 years ago

GadgetGuy

Verified Purchase

Member

Great concept for home security device. Major Fail as far as my confidence.
1. The sales guy at Best Buy promised a month free trial of full membership with access to the past 30 days recordings. I think I got 2 1/2 weeks or something not the month. Didn't really matter because of my next point.
2. The simple set up right out of the box was not simple due to poorly written instructions and device malfunctions. After the fifth call to Canary' help desk (which has been farmed out to another company so isn't staffed by Canary personnel) the lil birdie spit and choked and came to life.
3. At least 10 times in the past three weeks I've come home to an offline device. Calls to support explained the issues were from server failures. Okay thanks for the apology but my home security camera can't record so their server trouble equals my unprotected home.
4. That silly thing had a habit of activating itself when it wanted to regardless of privacy settings and "Do Not Record" situations. And No I did not set the controls incorrectly!
5. AND HERE IS THE BIG REASON I DECUDED CANARY WAS DEAD IN THIS MINE: Canary provided no garunteed of privacy and has the right to watch my home security footage any time they like with no permission needed. The Box said nothing regarding my privacy or their rights to watch my families activities.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Kurt

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Works, but features have been removed.

Posted 1 year ago

Kurt

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

The canary is simple to setup and has good quality video as well as a good app experience. It would be a 5star product if it weren't for the problems they have created starting in October 2017.
The problem is, they recently updated their service contracts and now what was once free with the Canary (scheduled Night mode for example), requires you to buy a paid membership. This was not simply some promo, it was a legitimate feature that I've had access to on this canary and my previous one for over 2 years now.
The idea that they can simply remove these services at any time leaves me uncertain as to how nice this canary will be in the future. I purchased this security device because it provided the best set of qualities WITHOUT having to buy a monthly membership. Now that they have removed some content, and with the threat that they could remove a lot more, I would be cautious suggesting people purchase this product.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Jeffj36

Elite Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Not so good after the policy change.

Posted 1 year ago

Jeffj36

Elite Member

Like others have stated, the company offered a pretty good plan for the non-membership customers. The non-membership plan was plenty for me and my use of the system. I have two camera's, one inside and one outside. I would monitor our babysitter throughout the day, or go over the video when I got home to make sure things were going OK. It would also alert me if someone came to the door. As of 10/4/17, the new policy will no longer do the things I bought the camera's for without paying a monthly fee. I confirmed this info through the app's chat feature and found it interesting that the representative also did not agree with the policy change and apologized for the actions the company has made. Although the camera's picture quality and feature's really nice, I'm just really disappointed the company would do this to its customers that have already invested hundreds into the equipment.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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PittsburghMom

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Don't Waste Your Money

Posted 1 year ago

PittsburghMom

I've owned a Canary for about 18 month. At first I absolutely loved it. I bought one for my son, as he was moving into a college apartment. And my sister bought one because I spoke so highly of it. About 4 months ago, it started switching from the away mode to the home mode when I was not at home. Since I didn't need it to record when I was at home, I have the home mode set to private - it didn't record. I tried to call their customer service, but they don't have reps that will speak to you. I tried contacting them via text, but the rep was juggling more than one conversation and was getting us confused. He finally asked me to turn off the canary and router, which I did. But the problem persists. I'm also not happy with the new membership. I was trying to avoid monthly service fees. I believe existing owners should have been grandfathered in the original agreement.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Gina

Elite Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Slowly Being Driven Into the Ground

Posted 1 year ago

Gina

Elite Member

I bought this device about a year ago. Setup was easy, it worked really well, and did the things I wanted it to. They offer free and premium plans, but the free plan always had enough features to do its job. But now, they're in the process of releasing an update that takes away almost all features for free plans. It will no longer record video when I'm at home, not even at nighttime when I'm asleep and at risk for break-ins. Even when I'm away, it just stores a preview and expects me to pay for a plan to see the full thing. No more downloads, no more saves, all I can do is bookmark previews. Had this been the case from the day I bought it, I wouldn't care so much. But it's not fun to have features taken away when you rely on them. This product no longer makes me feel secure.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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jylv

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Disappointing

Posted 1 year ago

jylv

While the camera works great and records good quality video, the app used to control it is lackluster and problematic. I've had this unit for little over a month and have already had to delete and reload the app twice because it stopped working properly. I've had numerous instances where the app would not switch from away mode to home mode, so I had to unplug the camera to actually turn it off. You cannot control the camera via the website either which is a problem (especially since the app doesn't always work). There is no option to receive an audible notification or text that activity has been detected and videos will show up hours or sometimes days after the activity has been recorded.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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numetheus

Elite Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Security device with absolutely no security

Posted 1 year ago

numetheus

Elite Member

The Canary has a feature that allows it to automatically go into “home” mode when family members are home through the app. This requires you to add family members to the Canary app. This feature works very well and is convenient. However, it is quickly overshadowed by the fact that anyone using the app can completely configure your devices. They can enable or disable recording. Enable or disable recording. They can even remove and add devices. They can even remove videos. There is absolutely no security or limits you can impose everyone. With a modern device, how can this even be a thing? Being able to control who can do what is a very basic and expected feature with any device that supports multiple users/members. This is sersiously the only app or device I’ve seen that allows multiple users and gives everyone full control. This design is absolutely terrible.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Cort

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Disappointing

Posted 9 months ago

Cort

Too many features unavailable unless you're willing to pay their membership fees monthly. The Canary also randomly changes setting and disables some settings from being changed. Currently my Canary won't record events when I'm away but decided to record every dust particle or shadow movement when I'm at home. Poor customer service and frequent Canary server problems means it's not reliably going to record when you think it should. A few weeks ago I kept getting daily messages that the air quality was bad, but no indication of what that meant. Never fully understood what triggered that message. Camera not as clear as some make it out to be. Overall disappointed with this purchase and wish I had spent slightly more money up front for quality features that don't require membership fees.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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YING

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

recorded timeline ripoff!!!!!

Posted 2 years ago

YING

The system works well and I like the ability to be able to check my residences however don't buy more than one canary unit, or they will penalize you on the free timeline viewing. If you own one unit you'll get 24 hours recorded timeline, but if you buy two units instead of getting 48 hours you'll only get 12 hours, it would be okay and understandable if you got 24 hours but they penalize/ rob the time we paid for. Forcing you to join the membership to view the timeline and the recordings for a longer time frame. But keep in mind the more Canarys the more per month and shared time reduced. 3 Canarys 8 hours free timeline, 4 Canarys 6 hours free timeline. So say you spend $200 for one Canary = 24 hours timeline, 4 Canarys @ $800 = 6 hours timeline. At minimum you should get 24 hours timeline no matter what!

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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MDLA

Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Very Unreliable, terrible service

Posted 1 year ago

MDLA

Member

When I first bought these I was impressed with the video quality and the customer service - you could actually talk to a person on the phone! The service and customer service has dropped substantially since then - it records video maybe half the time, and you can no longer call for customer service. You can "chat", but only during limited hours. The you open a ticket they never get back to you. And to make matters worse, they've increased the cost of membership by 4x! I've invested $1,000 in this terrible product, and no I'm stuck.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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DrNevadaBob

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Needs more development

Posted 3 years ago

DrNevadaBob

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

Easy installation and a sharp picture. However, even with a 100mb/sec internet cable connection camera slow to respond. requires location app to be activated on a smart phone which reduces phone battery life more than 50%. At medium and high sensitivity levels constant updates to phone a significant nuisance. Number of annual video downloads depends on the subscription plan, something not clearly stated in the camera promotional materials. An interesting product but far from top notch security device and system. Not recommended for average users in need of home security surveillance system! More of a toy than anything else.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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shun

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Great product but poor supporting App

Posted 3 years ago

shun

The sales associate recommended this product for me and the reviews on Bestbuy website were great. However, the ratings for the android app were not so flattering. It turned out those ratings for the app were right; I had a nightmare setting this camera up. The android app would crush every time I tried to set up the wifi connection. I ended up returning this camera though I really liked the sleek design and hardware specifications.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Pekingduck

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Pretty disappointed

Posted 3 years ago

Pekingduck

I read the reviews that sounded great but in actual use the product is a failure for me. Alerts come as a text message and very easy to miss them; video is too high bandwidth to download if your smart phone in not on wifi and the unit is extremely sensitive to light/false alarms. Additionally unless one day storage is ok for you you need to spend $10 a month for access. Only good thing is very clear pictures.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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RealDeal

Verified Purchase

Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Returned it

Posted 3 years ago

RealDeal

Verified Purchase

Member

I was looking for a camera that would view out the front window of the house and catch not only what was on the porch but also what was in the driveway. The night vision could not see through the glass. It would reflect the infrared lights back into the camera. This might work great if you intended on using it to watch the inside of your house but it didn't serve my purpose. I ended up getting the Ring doorbell camera instead.

I would recommend this to a friend

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lemg

Verified Purchase

Elite Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Not so great

Posted 11 months ago

lemg

Verified Purchase

Elite Member

Set up little confusing but nit too bad. Now " two way talk" - unavailable without buying membership, so is downloading recorder video to your smartphone. So if you do not want to keep paying membership you do not have two way talk , only 1 day of cloud storage. Competition is so much better. maybe their cameras do not have a thermometer built in. Your choice.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Kitty

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

2

Disappointing

Posted 3 years ago

Kitty

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

This review is from Canary - Indoor Wi-Fi High-Definition All-In-One Home Security System - White

I chose the Canary because of the pre-purchase ratings. It failed to reliably arm and disarm itself and the preprogrammed emergency numbers were for an area 50 miles away. I reprogrammed in local numbers but they reverted back to the originals. I emailed Customer Service but have received no response. Picture quality is good however.